Waking up at the crack of dawn to do situps, pushups and pullups probably sounds like torture to most people. It can be even more torturous when you are “forced” to do it, as was Jonathan McDermott.

McDermott, 25, of Fort Collins felt a calling to join the Army in December 2011 and shortly after, he found himself in boot camp in Fort Jackson, S.C., with a drill sergeant yelling at him.

Nearly every waking moment he spent running and doing strength training. With no other option, other than quitting, McDermott endured the workouts day in and day out for nine weeks.

“I feel like I was always like this way, I just didn’t know it,” said McDermott, who walked away stronger because of the intensive training. “It gave me something to focus on.”

McDermott’s experience of being forced to work out and coming out feeling better is in line with the findings of a new University of Colorado study.

Forced vs.voluntary workouts

The concept of a “forced” workout may seem a bit odd in today’s modern world. After all, it seems as though everbody is free to walk off the field or drop the weights whenever they want.

However, there are situations, such as the military or athletics, where people find themselves in a rigorous workout schedule in which they may not want to participate. Some people also may feel forced to exercise for health reasons.

Based on these differing approaches, Benjamin Greenwood in the CU Department of Integrative Physiology, tackled the question of whether a person who feels forced to exercise, eliminating the perception of control, would still reap the anxiety-fighting benefits of the exercise.

While previous studies have suggested that people who exercise are less likely to have stress-related disorder, scientists know the perception of control can benefit a person’s mental health, Greenwood noted in his research.

“If exercise is forced, will it still produce mental health benefits?” Greenwood asked in his study. “It’s obvious that forced exercise will still produce peripheral physiological benefits. But will it produce benefits to anxiety and depression?”

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The answer appears to be yes. Even if a person is required to exercise, it may still protect against anxiety and stress, the study discovered.

Greenwood proved the theory using a fairly standard method: lab rats running on wheels. For six weeks, some rats remained sedentary, while others exercised by running on a wheel.

Those rats that ran on the wheel were divided into a group that ran at will and one that was forced to run on mechanized wheels that rotated according to a predetermined schedule. Each group ran about the same amount of time.

Following the six weeks of exercise, the rats were exposed to a “laboratory stressor” before testing their anxiety levels the following day. The rats’ anxiety was determined by how long the rats “froze,” a phenomenon similar to a deer in the headlights, when they were put in an environment they had been conditioned to fear, according to the research.

The longer the freezing time, the greater the residual anxiety from being stressed the previous day. For comparison, some rats were also tested for anxiety without being stressed the day before, according to the study.

“Regardless of whether the rats chose to run or were forced to run, they were protected against stress and anxiety,” Greenwood said in a release. “The implications are that humans who perceive exercise as being forced — perhaps including those who feel like they have to exercise for health reasons — are maybe still going to get the benefits in terms of reducing anxiety and depression.”

The sedentary rats froze for longer periods of time than any of the active rats, providing further proof that exercise reduces stress, forced or not.

Real-world workouts

It’s one thing to prove a theory with rats spinning on wheels, but it is another to take it to the “real world” and see how it impacts humans in similar situations.

With McDermott, the forced military workouts had a positive impact on his mental well-being.

Before and after boot camp, McDermott did not work out as much, and he said he could see a distinct difference in his physical and mental state. After the grueling forced workouts, McDermott said he felt better, more focused and more confident overall.

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“Voluntary (workouts) get as much benefit as you can put into an exercise,” he said. “Forcing makes everyone get past that initial (wall) when you first start.”

Local athletes also have seen similar benefits in workouts required for sports.

Former CSU athletes said they can relate to workouts’ positive impacts.

Former Fort Collins CSU football player Matt Yemm, 24, said he was forced to work out in some intense programs as part of the football regimen. Up early, he would work out up to four days a week running and lifting weights.

“There were definitely days here and there, days I did not want to work out with school,” he said. “The hardest part, especially for me, was just getting up so darn early for some of the workouts.”

Even though it may have been tough to get going in the morning, Yemm said he always felt refreshed and ready for the day afterward.

Mentally, he said the workout set a tone for his day.

“To this day, I can tell days I worked out. I’m more mentally fresh, and my attention span is better, I can focus longer,” Yemm said. “Days I don’t work out, I am dragging and lagging behind.”

That’s why Yemm still spends his mornings lifting weights four days a week at the Fort Collins Club.

Pierce Hornung, 22, Fort Collins, a CSU men’s basketball player for the past four years, agrees that working out for the collegiate program kept him sharp.

While Hornung enjoyed the practices most days, he said that on the mental side, it could vary from day to day. Some days, he said he felt drained and worn out, while others he could practice all day.